Hundreds of immigrants arrested in sanctuary cities across US

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Article | September 29, 2017 | Sam Levin | The Guardian

The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement division arrested hundreds of people in raids across “sanctuary” cities in recent days, in an operation directly targeting communities that are resisting the president’s aggressive deportation agenda.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) announced on Thursday that it had arrested 498 people in a four-day operation and that it was dedicating more resources to the liberal jurisdictions that limit police cooperation with federal agents. The raids, which hit major cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, New York and Philadelphia, sparked harsh criticisms from human rights campaigners who said the arrests were cruel and vindictive and would only hurt public safety by disrupting families and instilling fear in communities.

“Persecuting cities because they are following the constitution and making sure they don’t violate people’s rights takes it down to a new level of low,” said David Leopold, an immigration attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “This makes communities less safe.”

Since he made anti-immigrant policies a cornerstone of his presidential campaign, Trump has repeatedly attacked sanctuary cities, which have regulations preventing local police from enforcing certain immigration laws and restricting law enforcement collaboration with Ice. Some progressive cities like San Francisco have sued the Trump administration over his efforts to withhold federal public safety grant money due as punishment for their sanctuary status.

Ice said its “Operation Safe City” arrests targeted people from 42 countries for various “federal immigration violations”, with a focus on regions that deny deportation officers access to jails and prisons or ignore requests to hold immigrants on behalf of Ice. The agency said it prioritized “aliens with criminal convictions, pending criminal charges, known gang members and affiliates, immigration fugitives and those who re-entered the US after deportation”.

Ice said that the arrests did not include Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) recipients, known as “Dreamers”, meaning immigrants brought into the country as children, who were protected by an Obama-era program that Trump recently revoked.